Gonzalez, 22, is part of a team conducting a novel gentrification study concerning the area surrounding the new pharmacy school.

Gentrification typically comes in the form of businesses buying depreciated properties, resulting in increased property values in the surrounding area. This often leads landlords to hike rents, which causes lower-income residents to move.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 18.8 percent of Johnson City residents live in poverty, a figure 25 percent higher than the national average.

“It’s one of the most poverty-stricken areas in the country,” says Gonzalez, an accelerated student who is pursuing a bachelor’s in geographic information systems (GIS) and a master’s degree in urban planning. “Buildings are made out of sheet rock, plywood staircases, with multiple families living in them. People living in these terrible conditions all because they’re paying $50-200 for rent.”

These conditions make Johnson City a prime gentrification target, and the pharmacy school provides an opportunity to study the area and its residents before gentrification takes place. That’s what makes Gonzalez’s research important: Previous research has typically examined gentrification after it has already occurred, but not before the process starts.

Gonzalez and his colleagues will look at variables such as spatial makeup, rent cost, median age, ethnicity and unemployment during the next several years. They’ll compare the local data to national figures. The team also conducts interviews and surveys and is establishing relationships with area residents. The researchers say there’s a lack of research that documents individual cases of gentrification and tracks where people go when they are displaced.

The research team uses Story Maps, a website that documents statistics on a map over a timeline, to help tie together the different forms of data in a simple display, making it easier to observe the changes that take place over time.

Gonzalez, who grew up in Harlem, is familiar with how an area can change over time from gentrification.

“Watching my own home change and my friends move out of their homes really pushed me toward this research,” Gonzalez says. “Its purpose is to improve the area for the community, but if you’re pushing the existing community out as a result, who is the improvement for?”

Gonzalez learned about the project from John Frazier, director of the research team. Kevin Heard, associate director of the GIS core facility at Binghamton and part of the research team, says they’ve been impressed by Gonzalez’s positive ideas for the study.

Gonzalez plans to apply to Harvard University and MIT for a program in urban design. Eventually, he wants to start an urban development consulting firm that helps with planning and designing new buildings and takes into account the existing demographics of an area.

Gonzalez may even want to go into politics. He’s already had a taste of that work while serving as the vice president of multicultural affairs (VPMA) on the Student Association.

“I really care about people who are of marginalized communities,” Gonzalez says. “That’s why I’m VPMA. I want to help out everyone who feels like they don’t have a voice.”

]]>http://discovere.binghamton.edu/student-spotlights/gonzalez-3-7065.html/feed0Chemist named to national academyhttp://discovere.binghamton.edu/news/whittingham-2-7161.html
http://discovere.binghamton.edu/news/whittingham-2-7161.html#respondFri, 09 Feb 2018 16:06:09 +0000http://discovere.binghamton.edu/?p=7161Binghamton researcher M. Stanley Whittingham has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering for pioneering contributions to battery technologies.

Whittingham is one of 83 new members and 16 foreign members announced, bringing the academy’s total U.S. membership to 2,293 and the number of foreign members to 262. He will be inducted during the NAE’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 30.

Membership in the National Academy of Engineering honors those who have made outstanding contributions to “engineering research, practice or education, including, where appropriate, significant contributions to the engineering literature” and to “the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of engineering or developing/implementing innovative approaches to engineering education.”

“Binghamton is very proud that the National Academy of Engineering has chosen to elect Distinguished Professor of Chemistry M. Stanley Whittingham to its ranks,” Binghamton University President Harvey Stenger said. “Professor Whittingham’s work has fundamentally changed the way the world stores and utilizes energy, making possible a revolution in consumer and industrial technologies. For nearly 30 years, Professor Whittingham has been one of the most visible and productive researchers at the University, and all of us at Binghamton congratulate him on this great honor.”

Whittingham, distinguished professor of chemistry and materials science at Binghamton University, joined the faculty in 1988 after 16 years at Schlumberger-Doll Research and Exxon Research and Engineering Company, where he received the patent for a rechargeable lithium-ion battery.

He has been a pioneer in the development of lithium-ion batteries. He holds the original patent on the concept of the use of intercalation chemistry in high-power density, highly reversible lithium batteries – work that provided the basis for subsequent discoveries that now power most laptop computers.

“It is a great honor to be elected to the National Academy of Engineering,” Whittingham said. “The research I have been involved with for over 30 years has helped advance how we store and use energy at a foundational level, and it is my hope that this recognition will help to shine a much-needed light on the nation’s energy future.”

With 16 patents and more than 300 publications in leading scholarly journals, Whittingham has earned a national and international reputation as a prolific scientist. His research in the area of synthesis and characterization of novel transition metal oxides for energy storage and conversion, separations or as sensors has been continuously supported since his arrival in Binghamton, with over $7 million in federal research grants from the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy. He now directs the NorthEast Center for Chemical Energy Storage, an Energy Frontier Research Center supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.

Whittingham helped to establish the Materials Science and Engineering Program, bringing his creativity and innovation to Binghamton’s graduate curriculum as well as to its laboratories.

Working a great deal with ambient temperature, he and his research group emphasize novel approaches to synthesis that often allow structures to be formed that are unstable under the high temperatures normally used for preparing oxides.

Whittingham has been recognized by his peers with two major awards in recent years. In 2002, he was honored with the Battery Research Award of the Electrochemical Society for his many contributions to “Intercalation Chemistry and Battery Materials.” Two years later, he was elected a Fellow of the Electrochemical Society.

He has also been active in the American Chemical Society, the American Physical Society, the Electrochemical Society, and the Materials Research Society; and served on the editorial boards of several journals, including Chemistry of Materials and the Materials Research Bulletin. He was also the founder and principle editor of the journal Solid State Ionics, one of the two major journals in the field.

Whittingham earned his bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees from Oxford University, before coming to the United States as a post-doctoral fellow at Stanford University.

]]>http://discovere.binghamton.edu/news/whittingham-2-7161.html/feed0Scientists find fossil from oldest modern human out of Africahttp://discovere.binghamton.edu/research-in-the-news/fossil-2-7154.html
http://discovere.binghamton.edu/research-in-the-news/fossil-2-7154.html#respondFri, 26 Jan 2018 15:17:16 +0000http://discovere.binghamton.edu/?p=7154“The dating had to be rock solid,” Binghamton anthropologist Rolf M. Quam told The New York Times. The team dated the tooth dentin and enamel, the sediment stuck to the upper jaw, and tools found near the fossil.
]]>http://discovere.binghamton.edu/research-in-the-news/fossil-2-7154.html/feed0Scientists discover oldest modern human fossil outside of Africahttp://discovere.binghamton.edu/news/fossil-7147.html
http://discovere.binghamton.edu/news/fossil-7147.html#respondThu, 25 Jan 2018 21:05:24 +0000http://discovere.binghamton.edu/?p=7147An international research team has discovered the earliest modern human fossil ever found outside of Africa. The fossil, found at Misliya Cave in Israel, suggests that modern humans left the continent at least 50,000 years earlier than previously thought.

“Misliya is an exciting discovery,” says Rolf Quam, a Binghamton University anthropologist and a coauthor of the study. “It provides the clearest evidence yet that our ancestors first migrated out of Africa much earlier than we previously believed. It also means that modern humans were potentially meeting and interacting during a longer period of time with other archaic human groups, providing more opportunity for cultural and biological exchanges.”

The fossil, an upper jawbone with several teeth, was found at one of several prehistoric cave sites on Mount Carmel. Several dating techniques applied to archaeological materials and the fossil itself suggest the jawbone is between 175,000 and 200,000 years old, pushing back the modern human migration out of Africa by at least 50,000 years.

Researchers analyzed the fossil remains relying on microCT scans and 3D virtual models and compared it with other hominin fossils from Africa, Europe and Asia.

“While all of the anatomical details in the Misliya fossil are fully consistent with modern humans, some features are also found in Neandertals and other human groups,” Quam says. “One of the challenges in this study was identifying features in Misliya that are found only in modern humans. These are the features that provide the clearest signal of what species the Misliya fossil represents.”

The archaeological evidence reveals that the inhabitants of Misliya Cave were capable hunters of large game species, controlled the production of fire and were associated with an Early Middle Paleolithic stone tool kit, similar to that found with the earliest modern humans in Africa.

While older fossils of modern humans have been found in Africa, the timing and routes of modern human migration out of Africa are key issues for understanding the evolution of our own species, the researchers say. The Middle East represents a major corridor for hominin migrations during the Pleistocene and was occupied at different times by both modern humans and Neandertals.

This discovery opens the door to demographic replacement or genetic admixture with local populations earlier than previously thought, Quam says. Indeed, the evidence from Misliya is consistent with recent suggestions based on ancient DNA for an earlier migration, prior to 220,000 years ago, of modern humans out of Africa. Several recent archaeological and fossil discoveries in Asia are also pushing back the first appearance of modern humans in the region and, by implication, the migration out of Africa.

Tara P. Dhakal, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, was awarded a five-year, $500,000 NSF CAREER grant for his study “Toward Twenty Year Lifetime: Hermetic Sealing for Perovskite Solar Cells.” The proposal was one of just 11 to be funded in a field of 150 proposals.

“Most solar cells are made from silicon and, while those solar cells are highly efficient, they have their limitations,” says Dhakal, who also serves as interim director of Binghamton’s Center for Autonomous Solar Power.

His work focuses on solar cells made with perovskite, a crystalline mineral found in nature that has shown the potential to create solar cells that are just as efficient as the silicon-based type.

“Unfortunately, the current versions of perovskite solar cells are typically fabricated with toxic lead,” Dhakal says. He wants to replace lead with non-toxic germanium.

“Germanium and lead both come from column 14 on the periodic table,” Dhakal says. “Other researchers have tried, without success, to use tin for the same reason but I’ve found evidence that germanium has a better chance of success.”

If he is able to replace the lead in the perovskite solar cells, they could prove to be more environmentally friendly than other solar cells.

However, even with the lead removed, there is another issue that could prevent perovskite solar cells from being deployed for an extended period of time.

That’s why Dhakal’s study will also be looking at ways to make perovskite solar cells last longer.

“Lead perovskite solar cells have only lasted for several months under ideal laboratory conditions,” he says. “With my proposed sealing techniques, I predict that module lifetimes could be greater than 20 years.”

With Dhakal’s seal on the perovskite solar cells, they could have the same shelf life that silicon solar cells do. Without lead and with this sealing, the cells will become more practical for use — which Dhakal says will facilitate a wider reach for solar power.

“Silicon makes a robust solar cell but one thing it misses is flexibility,” he says. “The perovskite solar cells could be made on fabrics or plastics, which would make solar power much more accessible.”

Dhakal, who did his undergraduate work in Nepal, came to Binghamton as a research scientist in 2010 after earning a doctorate at the University of Florida.

]]>http://discovere.binghamton.edu/faculty-spotlights/dhakal-7137.html/feed0‘The Weeping Time’ auction destroyed familieshttp://discovere.binghamton.edu/research-in-the-news/baileybook-7132.html
http://discovere.binghamton.edu/research-in-the-news/baileybook-7132.html#respondThu, 04 Jan 2018 15:58:16 +0000http://discovere.binghamton.edu/?p=7132Binghamton historian Anne C. Bailey’s new book describes how a slave auction wrenched families apart, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports.
]]>http://discovere.binghamton.edu/research-in-the-news/baileybook-7132.html/feed0Parkinson’s treatment could be more effective, student findshttp://discovere.binghamton.edu/student-spotlights/hareendran-7121.html
http://discovere.binghamton.edu/student-spotlights/hareendran-7121.html#respondWed, 03 Jan 2018 13:30:41 +0000http://discovere.binghamton.edu/?p=7121A Binghamton University senior and her colleagues recently uncovered evidence that the current treatment for Parkinson’s disease may not be as effective as it could be.

Lakshmi Hareendran was part of a research team investigating drug treatment for Parkinson’s, a neurodegenerative disorder caused by a loss of the brain chemical dopamine.

The dopamine circuit involved in motor movements consists of two receptors in the brain, the D1 and the D2 receptors. The current treatment for Parkinson’s is the drug L-DOPA, which acts on both of these receptors to release and replenish dopamine in the brain.

Hareendran and her colleagues in the Freshman Research Immersion program (FRI) at Binghamton provided evidence that stimulating the D2 receptor produces cognitive deficits, illustrating that L-DOPA may not be the best treatment for Parkinson’s.

The researchers treated rodents with L-DOPA and drugs that target either the D1 or the D2 receptors and then observed the effects on their ability to complete a behavioral task.

Stimulating the D2 receptor caused attention deficits on the behavioral tasks in both Parkinson’s and control models. Stimulating the D1 receptor produced no such effects.

“Parkinson’s disease is one of the most common neurodegenerative diseases in the world,” Hareendran says. “Knowing that the current treatment isn’t as effective as it could be is important.”

Hareendran, 21, has wanted to be a doctor since she was growing up on Long Island, influenced by several doctors in her family. Even then, she was interested in neuroscience.

“I had an uncle who was a brain surgeon,” Hareendran says. “As a kid, just thinking about him being able to understand something as complex as the human brain really inspired me to go down that path.”

Hareendran wants to work with Doctors Without Borders someday. An experience with MEDLIFE, an organization that provides medical care to impoverished areas, helped to solidify her goal. Hareendran traveled with the group to Peru and Ecuador to help set up medical clinics.

“My parents are refugees from Sri Lanka,” Hareendran says. “There was a genocide happening there for a while, so specifically with Doctors Without Borders I want to go and give back there.”

Hareendran is also president of the Indian International Student Union and was a peer mentor for FRI after she finished the program.

“She was one of those students that puts extra hours in, came in early, stayed late,” Kiessling says. “As a peer mentor, she was very open and receptive, and she challenged students to find answers. She’s a natural leader.”

]]>http://discovere.binghamton.edu/student-spotlights/hareendran-7121.html/feed0Undergrad stretches possibilities of flexible electronicshttp://discovere.binghamton.edu/student-spotlights/tomlinson-7094.html
http://discovere.binghamton.edu/student-spotlights/tomlinson-7094.html#commentsMon, 18 Dec 2017 14:30:16 +0000http://discovere.binghamton.edu/?p=7094What if a flat-screen TV could be rolled up like a piece of paper? Binghamton University undergraduate Peter Tomlinson can picture it, thanks to his work on flexible electronics.

Flexible electronics are exactly what they sound like. Current technologies include curved-screen phones and computer monitors. Eventually, consumers could see a flexible iPad in stores.

Tomlinson, a junior majoring in physics and mathematics, is involved in the Smart Energy research stream of the Freshman Research Immersion program (FRI), where he started this work by trying to reproduce flexible heterojunctions.

A heterojunction is the basic component of a thin film transistor, which has applications in LED lights and other electronic devices.

Most heterojunction materials crack when they are bent, which disrupts the flow of electricity. Finding heterojunction materials that can bend without cracking allows for the creation of flexible electronics.

This has already been accomplished; Tomlinson’s research builds upon earlier work. His efforts helped to refine the fabrication of a novel material for a piece of the junction.

Tomlinson then conducted research last summer to identify the hurdles that come with fabricating these junctions to set a strong foundation for further research by future FRI students.

“The incoming group of FRI students now working on this project are exploring a novel material that is very similar, chemically, to the one I explored over the summer,” Tomlinson says. “My research has made it so that the same model and parameters should work for this new material that they’re doing the research on.”

The applications also extend to solar panels.

“An LED is the opposite action to a solar cell; a solar cell absorbs light and an LED emits light,” Tomlinson says. “So you can have flexible solar panels that are easier to place than just the regular ones.”

Tomlinson, who grew up around the Finger Lakes, has been passionate about the sciences since high school. He was attracted to physics and math by the challenge of both subjects. “I’m drawn to the mysteries surrounding physics and how it fundamentally describes the world around me,” he says.

Marissa Civic, research assistant professor for the Smart Energy FRI stream, highlights Tomlinson’s dedication. “Peter is a strong student, very interested in science, and enjoys doing research,” she says. “Peter volunteered to do summer research in my lab; he spent hours a day in the lab working on his project as it interested him.”

Tomlinson also enjoys hiking, canoeing, camping and running. In high school he was on the cross country and track teams. “I enjoyed the exercise and being part of a team,” he says. “I now run recreationally and enjoy the days I can meet up with BU’s running club.”

Tomlinson says the flexible electronics project left him with a curiosity about other kinds of research. “I spent two years or so on the FRI project, and I want to get the most out of my college experience,” he says. “I think it would be exciting to explore new research opportunities.”

]]>http://discovere.binghamton.edu/student-spotlights/tomlinson-7094.html/feed1Bio-battery could be powered by your sweaty gym sockshttp://discovere.binghamton.edu/research-in-the-news/battery-6-7116.html
http://discovere.binghamton.edu/research-in-the-news/battery-6-7116.html#respondMon, 11 Dec 2017 15:16:26 +0000http://discovere.binghamton.edu/?p=7116A stretchy, flexible battery developed at Binghamton University could be powered by your sweat, Newsweek reports.
]]>http://discovere.binghamton.edu/research-in-the-news/battery-6-7116.html/feed0Most men confuse sexual interest with consent, a new paper showshttp://discovere.binghamton.edu/research-in-the-news/consent-7106.html
http://discovere.binghamton.edu/research-in-the-news/consent-7106.html#respondThu, 30 Nov 2017 14:40:07 +0000http://discovere.binghamton.edu/?p=7106What constitutes consent is apparently still unclear to most men. According to a new paper from Binghamton University and Rush University, most men confused sexual interest with consent, Teen Vogue reports.
]]>http://discovere.binghamton.edu/research-in-the-news/consent-7106.html/feed0Sophomore helps develop method to detect landmineshttp://discovere.binghamton.edu/student-spotlights/baur-7096.html
http://discovere.binghamton.edu/student-spotlights/baur-7096.html#commentsTue, 28 Nov 2017 13:45:36 +0000http://discovere.binghamton.edu/?p=7096A 5-year-old plays with his friends on the outskirts of a town in rural Afghanistan. As he runs around, a smooth, green object shaped like a butterfly catches his eye. He picks up the object and goes to show his friends.

The object in his hand is a PFM-1 “butterfly” blast mine, which has one purpose: to maim, not to kill. Left over from the Soviet-Afghan conflict, these mines are ubiquitous throughout Afghanistan, with an estimated 10 million of them still out there.

Jasper Baur, a sophomore at Binghamton University, is part of a team developing a means to detect these mines using sensors mounted on drones.

Butterfly mines are Russian-made plastic explosives that trigger once 25 pounds of cumulative pressure has been applied.

“It doesn’t even really kill people, it’ll just blow off limbs,” Baur says. “And children play with them because they look like toys. It’s really bad.”

These mines have stuck around for so long because they cannot be found with a metal detector, and there’s no other means of locating them safely.

The team hopes thermal imaging can change that.

At sunrise, the mines heat up faster than the environment surrounding them, and they take longer to cool after sundown. A mine can be detected by looking for heat differences during these times.

The researchers mounted a thermal imaging camera onto a quadcopter drone to see if they could detect the mines safely and accurately. The drone takes thermal pictures every few seconds while flying that are later analyzed by a computer.

The team first tested the device in a controlled environment by hovering it over mine replicas in different sandbox environments, with successful results. This fall, researchers finished their first pilot study in a state park near Binghamton, scattering replicas throughout the park and flying the drone over to detect them.

The team is processing the data from that study, and the device is nearly finished. The researchers’ task now is to work out the kinks in detecting the mines, focusing on how easily they can be detected and how many “false alarms” (things that look like mines that are not) come up.

Eventually, they hope to develop software that allows a computer to use the mines’ temperature values and scan through photos to detect them. Baur presented this research in November at the American Geophysical Union meeting in New Orleans.

Baur, a geology major and a fine arts minor, started this research in fall 2016, when he joined the Geospatial Remote Sensing stream of the Freshman Research Immersion program.

“Jasper is an ultra-high-achieving student,” says Timothy De Smet, research educator. “What makes him stand out is how much he actually cares.”

Baur, who plans to go to graduate school for geology or geophysics somewhere in California, says he became interested in geology as a kid.

“I had a big rock collection, I always liked collecting them,” he says. “Studying the land is very applicable to me. I was outside the other day, and noticed ‘Oh wow, this surface process is happening, and I know why.’”

Baur also has a passion for art, especially acrylic painting. He is vice president of the Binghamton University Fine Arts Society, a club that meets weekly for drawing sessions and monthly for gallery viewings in Binghamton.

“I really enjoy creating art in a social setting,” he says. “I’ll have my first gallery showing this December.”

]]>http://discovere.binghamton.edu/student-spotlights/baur-7096.html/feed1‘Textisms’ help get meaning across in digital erahttp://discovere.binghamton.edu/research-in-the-news/text-2-7092.html
http://discovere.binghamton.edu/research-in-the-news/text-2-7092.html#respondMon, 20 Nov 2017 16:22:59 +0000http://discovere.binghamton.edu/?p=7092It turns out that punctuation is quite effective at conveying emotion when we can’t be face to face, Newsweek reports, citing a study by Binghamton psychologist Celia Klin.
]]>http://discovere.binghamton.edu/research-in-the-news/text-2-7092.html/feed0Cancer drug research gets boosthttp://discovere.binghamton.edu/news/drug-7082.html
http://discovere.binghamton.edu/news/drug-7082.html#respondThu, 16 Nov 2017 14:30:22 +0000http://discovere.binghamton.edu/?p=7082For years, scientists have been searching for ways to reduce the debilitating side effects of anti-cancer drugs. Antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) can target cancer cells without affecting the healthy cells that surround them, but only if the problem of connecting the drug to the antibody is solved.

At Binghamton University, Susan Bane thinks she’s found an answer: an ADC that uses a boronic acid to bind cancer-fighting drugs to the proteins on the surface of cancer cells, creating a chemical reaction that could be well-suited for drug delivery, with the potential to avoid the complications of chemotherapy and radiation.

“Killing non-cancer cells is where side effects come from, which is why this research is so important to pharmaceutical companies,” says Bane, a professor of organic and biological chemistry who received a $50,000 investment from the SUNY Technology Accelerator Fund (TAF) in June. “You can make antibodies that recognize very, very specific things on the surface of cancer cells, things that are in much higher abundance than they are on a normal cell. These antibodies can attach themselves to the cancers, making the specific bonds that you want to see between the drug and the antibody. There aren’t a lot of chemistries that can make that happen efficiently, but we believe this method will be fast enough to use in a clinical setting.”

For the past 30 years, Bane’s cancer work has focused on microtubules, intracellular structures that are involved in cell division and organization. In this most recent breakthrough, she was conducting basic research on microtubules, trying to speed up a chemical reaction, and decided to add boron. Bane expected the reaction to take hours; instead, it finished within seconds, providing an a-ha moment that pushed her research into a new direction.

“We found it by accident, while were working on a completely different project,” Bane says. “We thought that if we tried the reaction with boronic acid, we could make it faster. Not only did we make it faster, we made it thousands of times faster. We thought, ‘What just happened?’ Chemists had made these kinds of molecules before, using a much slower process, but our pieces just snapped together. We were completely blown away, and that’s how we ended up here.”

The result of this latest research, patented as “Rapid and efficient bioorthogonal ligation reaction and boron-containing heterocycles useful in conjunction therewith,” has distinct advantages over products currently on the market. First, there’s speed, which should make the molecule much easier to produce and much quicker to react. Second, its reagents are more biocompatible, so there aren’t any concerns about its toxicity in the human body. Third, it’s able to work well in water, even at highly diluted levels, and can be used without having to eliminate excess reagents after treatment.

Like other bioorthogonal chemical reactions, which are increasingly being used in personalized medicine, Bane’s product can be carefully controlled for consistency. Plus, this same patented process has potential applications in medical imaging, where it could create radioactive molecules to make PET scans safer, more efficient and less expensive.

“We think this reaction has a lot of potential utilities, and we’re interested in seeing where it can go,” Bane says. “One step is to reach across the academic community, let people know about our work and find out where they can take it. Another is to move outside academia, to places that have the resources to develop this. We’re at the stage now where we want to show this process can work on a larger scale and in a more controlled environment. But first, we have to get this into the hands of people with enough resources to take it to the next step.”

That’s where SUNY’s Technology Accelerator Fund comes in. To bring the patent closer to clinical trials, Bane is using her investment to manufacture experimental quantities of the novel chemical reagents and modified antibodies, purchase the commercial material currently available and begin testing the two head-to-head in her Binghamton laboratory. At the same time, she has begun leasing the technology to outside labs, where it’s being tested for a variety of potential biomedical and pharmaceutical applications.

“The more material that gets out there, the more people will be doing basic research, the more peer-reviewed publications we’ll have and the more interest will be generated for this type of chemistry,” Bane says. “Drug development is enormously expensive for pharmaceutical companies, and before we can find investors, we need to show that this process will work in a much more controlled environment. TAF is helping us reach the stage where our product will be more attractive to potential licensees, including the companies that could ultimately develop this for the marketplace. Getting the TAF grant is showing people that this project has commercial viability.”

]]>http://discovere.binghamton.edu/news/drug-7082.html/feed0Sophomore develops virtual “eye” for blindhttp://discovere.binghamton.edu/student-spotlights/mangal-7070.html
http://discovere.binghamton.edu/student-spotlights/mangal-7070.html#respondWed, 08 Nov 2017 07:50:06 +0000http://discovere.binghamton.edu/?p=7070Maitri Mangal is part of a Binghamton University team that hopes to develop a device that can act as “eyes” for the visually impaired.

The team uses Google Tango, a device that surveys its environment using a 180-degree camera and creates a 3D map that is saved into a GPS. When it returns to a previously visited place, the Tango recognizes where it is and loads the map.

Mangal, a computer science major, and her colleagues started this work through the Image and Acoustics Signaling stream of the Freshman Research Immersion program at Binghamton University. Shaun Canavan, an assistant research professor, bought the Tango and some other devices for the lab.

“It’s impressive that freshmen and sophomores are tackling this stuff,” Canavan says. “This is graduate-level work.”

The team wants to modify the Tango application so that it can detect a dynamic environment in real time, and install the application into a wristband or a necklace that can be worn by people who are blind. The goal is to be able to use this device to navigate the environment.

The team’s first step is to program the Tango to detect the closest object in its view and process where it is in real time. Tango is not able to recognize changes to its environment, and has to create a new map every time something moves.

“Say there’s a table, for example,” says Mangal, a sophomore from Vestal, N.Y. “I don’t need to be concerned about the table if I’m sitting here. But if I’m walking towards the table, then I need to be able to know it’s there in time.”

Mangal hopes to modify the Tango so that it is constantly remapping its environment in order to detect the changes. Eventually, the application should even be able to identify what an object is.

“At some point in the future, you want to know if there is a snake versus a cat,” Mangal says. “If there’s a snake right there, you need to be warned.”

Mangal began conducting research while she was still in high school. She has worked on a proof-of-concept for an airport navigation app and participated in NetSci High, which gets students involved in studying network science.

Mangal says this passion became clearer last summer, when she designed an app for USA Today during an internship. “Research has given me the tools to go and create products,” she says. “I definitely want to go more towards that route.”

Mclauchlin, a rising senior at Binghamton University, grabbed the attention of Jessica Hua, an assistant professor of biological sciences, not only with his scientific background but also with his art portfolio.

With guidance from Hua, Mclauchlin created an interactive art exhibit with 20 pieces ranging from a painting of tadpoles to a papier-mâché organism. The project explored art’s influence on perception of research.

“It was a combination of two studies actually,” says Mclauchlin, an environmental studies and graphic design major. “We not only tested for perception of research, but also for comprehension and retention of information in the exhibit.”

Perception of research was measured by a pre-quiz and follow-up quiz. In total there were around 80 participants from both scientific and non-scientific backgrounds. Participants without scientific backgrounds had a 20 percent increase in research interest after attending the exhibit, and scientifically inclined participants had a 10 percent increase.

On the other hand, Hua’s ecology students experienced no change in perception of scientific research. The students even decreased in retention of information in a follow-up quiz one week later. Most students retained information better after reading scientific abstracts instead.

“This suggests that art can facilitate scientific appreciation and is most influential for individuals with non-scientific backgrounds,” Mclauchlin says. “I can see this information being used for science museums, exhibits or by scientists who want to communicate their research to the public.”

Mclauchlin aims to create a larger, more cohesive exhibit in the future, with more diversified participants in the study. For the learning and retention aspect of the exhibit, he plans to administer more follow-up quizzes to the ecology classes, in order to analyze memory at varying times of the day and amounts of time after the exhibit.

Understanding the influence of different mediums could be important for the future of science communication, especially in a time where there is a divide between the scientific and non-scientific world.

Vanessa Wuerthner, a doctoral student in Hua’s lab, says Mclauchlin brings something to the lab that no other student does: He turns research from the lab into art. “Ben puts in an immense amount of time and effort in making art pieces that he then brings together at art shows that are open to the public,” she says. “All of his artistic efforts allow the lab to really bridge the gap between the science community and the local community.”

Mclauchlin received a Summer Scholars and Artists fellowship to conduct research on marine debris and plastics in Binghamton this summer. He spends his time outside of the lab volunteering in the Nature Preserve, attending Ballroom Dance Club and participating in the Hinman Production Company, a student-run theater group.

Mclauchlin says he tries to balance his workload each semester with half science courses and half art courses.

Hua says she was impressed by Mclauchlin’s range of skills. “Ben is very creative, and his willingness to help others makes him an asset to the lab,” Hua says. “It could be 1 a.m., and he’ll be the first person to offer help to another student in the lab.”

]]>http://discovere.binghamton.edu/student-spotlights/mclauchlin-7016.html/feed0Scientists build a battery you can power with your spithttp://discovere.binghamton.edu/research-in-the-news/spit-7042.html
http://discovere.binghamton.edu/research-in-the-news/spit-7042.html#respondWed, 09 Aug 2017 12:46:13 +0000http://discovere.binghamton.edu/?p=7042You’re stranded in the middle of nowhere, phone battery dead. Lacking all access to electricity or even solar power, you turn to your last resource — your own spit. That’s the dream of researchers at Binghamton University, who have developed a battery that can be powered by saliva, Popular Mechanics reports.
]]>http://discovere.binghamton.edu/research-in-the-news/spit-7042.html/feed0Researcher focuses on alcohol’s effect on immune systemhttp://discovere.binghamton.edu/student-spotlights/mondello-7033.html
http://discovere.binghamton.edu/student-spotlights/mondello-7033.html#respondWed, 09 Aug 2017 12:00:10 +0000http://discovere.binghamton.edu/?p=7033Jamie Mondello is looking into the learning processes surrounding alcohol and how the drug affects our immune response.

The Binghamton University senior wants to see if an environmental cue associated with intoxication, such as a scent, could alter the immune response.

Research shows that our immune system can learn to respond to a stimulus that didn’t initially cause a response, a process known as immune conditioning. These stimuli can either blunt the immune response or enhance it, which has several applications such as suppression of the immune response after organ transplant surgery.

“Immuno-conditioning has been shown for other drugs like heroin, but it is uncommon to see studies involving conditioning of the alcohol response,” says Mondello, an integrative neuroscience major.

Alcohol is the most commonly used drug in the U.S., with 71 percent of Americans saying they consumed alcohol in 2014. Alcohol addiction affects millions of people worldwide. How does the body adapt in the presence of alcohol, and what makes it so hard to abstain?

Mondello says small amounts of alcohol have been shown to suppress the immune response. This makes ethanol (alcohol) an unconditioned stimulus (US). In her research, she uses a lemon-scented substrate as an environmental stimulus, which may function as a conditioned stimulus (CS). Successful immuno-conditioning, meaning the immune response would be suppressed by the lemon-scented substrate alone, would reveal major insights about alcohol cravings.

Intrigued by a class on drugs and behavior during her sophomore year, Mondello leaped at an opportunity to work with Terry Deak, professor of psychology at Binghamton. His is one of the few research labs looking into the physiological effects of drug conditioning as opposed to the more studied area of behavioral conditioning.

Mondello says she attributes much of her growth as a scientist to Anny Gano, who recently completed her doctorate in integrative neuroscience, and Andrew Vore, a doctoral student in behavioral neuroscience, also in Deak’s lab.

“Jamie loves science and she loves learning, and that kind of attitude benefits everyone in the lab,” Vore says. “She has contributed in the design of a study from the ground up, both in the logic justifying the hypotheses and also in crafting an effective design to answer the questions she set forth.”

Mondello, who completed a summer internship at the National Institutes of Health in 2016, says she is carrying over the lab techniques and planning skills she learned from watching an experiment from beginning to end.

Gano says it is Mondello’s reliability, good humor and willingness to do any work that has made her stand out from other undergraduates. “She is now at a high level of technical proficiency on many lab techniques, and is in the process of learning many more,” Gano says.

In her free time, Mondello loves cooking and trying new recipes. “I noticed I was setting up my kitchen like I would set up my lab for PCR,” she says, laughing.

Growing up on Hastings-on-Hudson, Mondello always loved science. She plans to pursue a doctorate in neuroscience, following in the footsteps of her grandmother, who has a doctorate in psychology.

“There are a lot of strong women figures in my family,” she says, “and that always inspired me.”